Top 10 Circulated Graphic Novels of 2015

The end of the school year: the time when pizza and ice cream sandwiches miraculously appear in the teacher’s lounge. It’s also when I like to look back at the most checked-out books in our K-4 school library during the year.

This year, I thought it would be interesting to look at the most popular by category. Let’s do graphic novels first. If you don’t have any of these, what are you doing?! Pick them up A.S.A.P.

10. Crown of Horns (Bone #9) by Jeff Smith

To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect to see a Bone book on the list – these have been around a while now and I figured they would have a lot of circs, but not top 10 level. As you can see, I was wrong. It’s a classic.

8. Donner Dinner Party (Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales) by Nathan Hale

It’s always interesting to me when the newest book in a series isn’t the circs leader. That’s the case here and I’m willing to bet the video game element put it over the top.

6. The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics

This brings a tear to my Sunday comics loving heart. It has a couple things going for it. First, it has a wide range of comics, so there’s a little something for everyone. Secondly, it’s huge, and kids love huge books.

5. Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood: A World War I Tale (Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales) by Nathan Hale

More Hazardous Tales

4. Tiny Titans: Penguins in the Batcave! by Art Baltazar; illustrated by Franco

This book is probably the biggest surprise to me. Tiny Titans is a great (and Eisner-winning) series.

3. Prince of the Elves (Amulet #5) by Kazu Kibuishi

Any self-respecting graphic novel popularity list has to have some Amulet.

2. Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

I really expected this to top the list. It’s been one of the most talked about books in our school library this year. It was checked out and read a ton. But there was one book that quietly beat it out for the top spot by…

1. Robot Frenzy (Stone Rabbit #8) by Eric Craddock

Who knew? While the Stone Rabbit series has been a workhorse around here, I didn’t think this one would beat out every other graphic novel. But that’s why we do this.

Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.

The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics! Thanks so muchTravis–it looks like the kids are making good use of it. This brings a tear to MY eyes! A HUGE tear–it was an insane amount of work to gather the comics in this Treasury–our hope was that it would be the cornerstone of every library’s GN/comics section–it looks like it’s happening!

My son and I LOVED The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics. Snuggling up and reading his favorite ones over and over again at bedtime is one of my best memories. Thanks to your hard work there are so many parents and children who have had – and will have – the same experience. Merci beaucoup!

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About 100 Scope Notes

Children's literature news, reviews and assorted school librarian oddities. Combine one part kid's books, one part school librarianship, a splash of absurdity and you get 100 Scope Notes.

Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com. He's also on...